Electronic Countermeasures: Difference between revisions

'''Electronic Countermeasures''', also known as '''ECM''' or "jamming", gives a chance to cause the targeted ship to lose all targets it has locked (with the exception of the jammer), and loses the ability to target anything that is not currently jamming it for 20 seconds (5 seconds for ECM drones). During combat this means the affected ship cannot shoot or use any targeted modules on any of your fleet mates. Your target will still be able to use modules which don't require a target such as [[smartbombs]] or other area effect weapons.

The ECM module follows same formula for range as all other modules that have a falloff mechanic:

:<math> \displaystyle \text{Jam strength} = \text{Base} \times 0.5^{\Large \left( \frac{\max(0,\ \text{Distance} - \text{Optimal})}{\text{Falloff}} \right)^2 } </math>

let's assume your ECM module has a 50 km range and has a 40km falloff. When your target is within optimal range you have a 20% chance to jam them per cycle of your modules.

* If your target is 50 km away you will have the full 20% chance to jam  

* At 60 km (50 km + 10 km) you will now have 17% chance to jam (84% of 20%)

The race-specific modules are not named in a way that makes it obvious what race of ships they're effective against. Remember that each race's ship's all have the same colour background in the portrait image you see when you have them targeted.

It is clear that the gravimetric jammers are not helping much against Augorors. If there are any ships with vulnerable sensors (Caldari ships in this case) on field then it may be better to jam them even if they weren't as important jamming targets.

On the other hand if you had had a crystal ball with you when you fit your ship you could have fitted full rack of four radar jammers. In that case the probability to succesfully jam one enemy Augoror would have been

So far the examples have been about focusing all jams to single target. But the voice of your EWAR FC echoes in your mind ''"Spread the jams"''.

Spreading four radar jammers to four different Augorors gives you still the same 49% chance to jam at least one of them But you will also have the chance to jam two, three or four target. The jamming probabilities in this case follow [[:Wikipedia:binomial distribution|binomial distribution]].

As with everything in EVE there are multiple skills that will greatly increase your effectiveness when using ECM.

|'''ECM Jammer Burst Projector''' - [[Supercarriers]] can use an ECM Jammer Burst Projector to apply a 5 strength jam to all ships within a 10km radius bubble projected at a location chosen by the super pilot after a 10 second spoolup. Jams from this projector will last for 40 seconds, rather than the 20 seconds of normal jams. Ships jammed by the burst projector will not be able to target the supercarrier that generated the burst. A weapons timer is applied to the supercarrier for the duration of the Burst Projector's 300 second activation time (reducible with levels in {{Sk|Burst Projector Operation|icon=yes}}). Consumes 250 Heavy Water upon use.

If you know the type of fight you are heading towards you can make a tactical decision and fit full rack of specific racial jammers(or the fleet commander might make this decision before you head out).  

Since there are no stacking penalties for ECM large number of unbonused jammers will work well. But even though all types of ships can use ECM there are certain ships that have hull bonused aimed for ECM use.

** 20% bonus to ECM Target Jammer strength per caldari frigate level

** -85% penalty to ECM optimal range and falloff

** -85% reduction to ECM Jammer activation cost and CPU requirements

Now you should understand exactly what ECM is and how it works within Eve. How is it countered? In order to make it harder for ECM modules to jam you you simply need to increase your sensor strength. You can do this in a variety of ways:

* Remote Sensor Boosters - These allow you to remotely project ECCM script support on to your friend's ship.  

Often, however, the most effective way to counter ECM is to destroy the ECM ship(s) or hurt them enough that they're forced to warp out. The Griffin, Blackbird, Kitsune and Falcon tend to be only barely tanked if they're tanked at all, while the Rook and the Scorpion can mount tanks, but usually still have unimpressive defenses for ships of their respective sizes. ECM pilots tend consequently to be fairly jittery, so even if you can't actually kill them, if you can demonstrate the ability to hurt them they often run away.

A long-ranged, high-alpha weapons such as a artillery can deal an intimidating amount of damage in one volley, which is good for this. In battles which are being fought at long range anyway, damage-dealers fitted with long-range missiles are often tasked with this kind of 'anti-support' fire because by the time their missiles travel to the primary target it would be dead anyway, and volleys of heavy or cruise missiles can also persuade ECM ships to run away.

On most ECM ships ECM's long optimal range is one of the things that keeps you out of trouble, so you should try to warp to targets at your optimal range, ''not'' at zero. (Sometimes you will have to fight at short range -- if the enemy jump into an offensive [[gatecamp]], for example.)

Your best way of staying alive is to warp out, and to be able to warp out quick enough if something starts attacking you you should be pre-aligned. When you arrive on-grid where a fight's happening, or when a fight starts where you are, you should quickly select a convenient celestial object (planets are good), or a bookmark, and align to it.   

Then, if you find yourself being targeted or if the FC orders the fleet to scatter, you can get out quickly by warping to the celestial you're aligned to. If the fight's still going on, you can then warp back in (warp at your optimal range to one of your fleetmates who was in the middle of things) and carry on jamming. Be careful when choosing an object to align to, however.  If the enemy is between you and the celestial you are aligned to, your course will take you towards the fight, and your range advantage will be negated.  If you align to an object in the opposite direction of the enemy, you risk straying out of your optimal range, and decreasing the likelihood of successfully jamming your opponent. Whenever possible, pick a celestial which, when aligned to, will put you on a course perpendicular to that of your foe, assuming you're near your optimal range, and the enemy isn't burning directly towards you. This will ensure that you don't rapidly get out of range, or wander into the midst of the battle.

With more experience you may notice situations where it might be worth staying around until you die to get a crucial jam in, but that's something you have to make a call on yourself.

If you have some time (you are not about to die) you can gain a large advantage if you do not active all of your ECM modules on a target.

Let's assume there are two targets attacking you and your friends. Immediately you target both of them and decide you will turn on two multispectral jammers for each (four in total). One of the targets gets lucky and avoids both of the jams and the other target gets jammed from your first ECM module. The lucky enemy (that didn't get jammed) then happily targets you and blows you up! Ouch.

At this point we have 2 more modules to work with.

Unless you only have one or two enemies, judging which enemy you should try to jam is an important decision. Your Fleet Commander may tell you to jam a particular target or even appoint an EWAR target caller, in which case you should obviously follow their orders. However, most FCs, most of the time, will not issue specific orders for their ECM ships, leaving the decision to you.

Often, particularly when you're in a large fleet, the primary target called by the FC for the damage-dealers is not the best ship to jam, since hopefully it will die soon anyway. Instead you should quickly look at what the enemy have and find some good targets for ECM.

If the enemy have their own EWAR ships it can be useful to jam them. This goes especially for enemy ECM ships. Equally, of course, electronic warfare ships and especially ECM ships have high sensor strengths for their hull size.

If you're flying a Blackbird, Scorpion or Kitsune you will have a long enough range that you will be one of the few ships in the fleet that might be able to counter enemy snipers. With good ECM range skills, the Blackbird and Kitsune should have a decent chance to jam sniper HACs, and the Scorpion should have a decent chance to jam sniper battleships. (This is where a Targeting Range script can come in useful if you fitted a Sensor Booster.) Keep in mind that your jammed target can still shoot back at you if you're in range, and that damps or tracking/guidance disruptors may be more appealing, depending on the situation.

Since October 2018, a jammed target can attack the ship that is jamming it, see [https://forums.eveonline.com/t/ecm-balance-pass-november/115696 forum post], [https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/patch-notes-for-october-2018-release patch notes], and [https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/october-balance-pass dev blog]. This was a notable change in mechanics as a solo pilot flying an ECM ship cannot protect themselves by jamming an enemy. Before the changes, ECM was generally regarded as the most effective Electronic Warfare technique, because of its potency and the safety it provided to the user.